Heretofore, barbed wire has generally been manually fastened to a post or gate end after being stretched to it. This procedure is time consuming and results in unequal wire tension on opposite sides of the post. Moreover, there can be some relaxing of wire tension when the wire stretcher is disengaged which leads to difficulty in properly tensioning short lengths of wire, such as gate wires.
With the present invention the wire is first looped around the post. The outgoing and incoming lengths of wire on opposite sides of the post are then drawn longitudinally towards each other with the wire stretcher, after which the wire stretcher is rotated to wind the outgoing and incoming lengths of wire about each other between the wire stretcher and the post. The wire further tensions by the winding process and remains at maximum tension when the wire stretcher is disengaged.
Since the wire stretcher maintains full and even tension in the two lengths of wire as it winds them about each other, the resulting connection is distinctly tight and stable without sharp bends. When applied to short lengths of wire such as gate wires, the connection may be wound further to eliminate slack, should slack develop in service.